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A Big Change In The Big Ten Tiebreaker Could Impact The National Title Race · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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Welcome to buck Eyes tomorrow morning for Tuesday, October seventeenth. I'm your host,
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Tom Moore. The Penn State game is in four days, the game
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against Michigan in thirty nine days. Both of those games, Ohio State,
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Penn State and Ohio State Michigan going to probably have a very big say in
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who wins the Big Ten, who comes out of the Big Ten into the
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college football playoff field, and potentially who wins the national championship. And today
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we're going to be talking about that national championship race again. I know we
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did this last week and said I don't want to make a habit out of
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this, but last week was a pretty big one. Three unbeaten Power five
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teams lost one in extremely hilarious fashion in South Bend, Indiana, and also
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an absolute classic. Oregon and Washington and Louisville, who I mentally had already
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written out of the national championship race last week, went ahead and wrote themselves
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out this week. So thank you very much. Never wrong, Tony Gerdaman,
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only early, that's the motto of this show. And we want to
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Before I started, they kind of run down the eight remaining unbeatens. I
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did want to talk to you about something that you mentioned on our board,
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the Huddle board at pocket huddle dot com this week. We had sort of
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been assuming all year that, based on the Big Ten tiebreaker system, if
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Ohio State and Michigan and Penn State each went one and one against each other,
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it would get down to the fifth tiebreaker, which is the records of
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the teams in the opposing division that you played. And looking at it before
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the season, it looked like Ohio State playing Minnesota and Purdue and Wisconsin was
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probably going to be in pretty decent shape there. Well, maybe things have
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taken a little bit of a turn because of Iowa's win over Wisconsin, a
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fifteen to six Brian Farrence Classic, and now Tony You did some digging and
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right now Penn State is actually maybe in the driver's seat there. Yeah,
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And it's the conference record of the Big Ten West opponents, and right now
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the conference records of Penn State's Big Ten West opponents a nice five and six.
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Ohio State's conference the record of Ohio State's opponents four and six, and
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of course Michigan trailing at three and seven. So now Michigan's opponents they don't
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have a Wisconsin or in Iowa to boost them up like Ohio State and Penn
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State do. But right now the iowhaw guys are if things turn out obviously,
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with one loss each for Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State,
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the Iowhawke guys could send Penn State to the Big Ten Championship, where they
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will then play them and then you know, you get to pick your opponent.
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I guess sort of. Yeah, the Penns. The Iowhawke Gys are
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actually shockingly close to maybe being eleven and one and the Big Ten West champions
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and also averaging about seventeen points a game. I don't know how this is
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happening. It's all very frightening and confusing. But yeah, if you got
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to remember, in this scenario, Iowa has already lost their game to the
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Big tennis team. They've already there. That lost to Penn State is already
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baked in Wisconsin. In this scenario, Wisconsin would have another loss coming to
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Ohio State in a couple of weeks. Up in Madison also just lost starting
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quarterback Tennor Mordecai lost their starting one of their big running backs a couple of
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weeks ago. I mean that is a team that is hurting a little bit,
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so that this this could be a little bit of a paradigm shift.
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Could be Ohio State fans rooting for Michigan when Michigan plays Penn State. Cats
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and Dogs living together, Tony, I don't it is the end. The
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end times are nigh, but we'll see. Ohio State has to get through
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Penn State first this weekend, and they are I'm speaking of the end times.
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I'm to be citing a ESPN FPI statistic in this show the percentage chance
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of each of the eight unbeaten teams in college football winning out according to ESPN's
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FPI stat Tony, I'm going to give you the eight eight remaining unbeaten teams
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in alphabetical order, and I'm going to have you tell me which one you
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think has the highest percentage chance of winning out according to this stat So let's
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see in order. I'm going to try and do this in alphabetical order,
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Florida State, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio State, Oklahoma,
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Penn State, and Washington. So there's are your eight remaining unbeaten teams.
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Which one do you think is judged to have the most and of course Oregon,
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USC and Louisville all loss last week. So which of those eight teams
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do you think has the greatest chance, as judged by ESPN's FP high stat
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of going unbeaten the rest of the way. This is a good question because
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and this is including the conference championship game. Do we know that for sure?
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Based on this number, I'm going to assume it is not including the
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conference championship. I believe this is just through the regular season. Okay,
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boy, this is tough because surprisingly Georgia is starting to play some some ranked
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teams coming up on the schedule with the Missouri in there. I think Texas
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probably has the easiest road, but they will I'm sorry. Oklahoma has the
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pretty easy road, but they would have to face Texas in a championship game.
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But that seems to be taking out. I don't expect it to be
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North Carolina. So, and the ACC is not great, tom, So
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I think it's all of them. Let me say, let me go with
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Oklahoma. Oklahoma is in fact, okay, they are the most likely,
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according to the stat forty point eight percent chance to win out in the regular
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season go to the Big Twelve championship game. At that point if you're playing
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Texas, and I mean technically it's still up and out in doubt a little
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bit, but you know, right now it looks very very likely that that's
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the case. If that's an unbeaten Oklahoma a one lost Texas, that feels
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very much like a play in game worthy for the College Football Playoff at that
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point, where if Texas is eleven and one has avenged their win over Oklahoma
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and they're the Big twelve champion, plus they have a win over Alabama,
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they would be pretty much impossible to leave out unless there are four other conference
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champions were unbeaten at that point. And you know, if Oklahoma wins out
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obviously, then they're pretty much a one hundred percent chance to get in.
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So, yes, they are number one. Now now comes number two,
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Tony, who is of the remaining teams, and I will just I'm just
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going to give you the conferences, ACC, SEC, PAC twelve. Who
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else I'm gonna say Georgia incorrect, incorrect. Georgia is actually the fourth most
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they have. Yeah, they have enough, you know, I mean they've
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played No. One so far this year and you know, well sorry,
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sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, they played Kentucky, and Kentucky was
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ranked after they beat them, so they must have been incredible before Georgia beat
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them by a million points. Yes, Georgia only seventeen point two percent.
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Number two is actually number two is actually Florida State thirty point two percent because
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they have you know, they they don't as we talked about last week,
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they don't play Duke Or they don't play North Carolina, they don't play they
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don't play Louisville. So the two other unbeatens in the ACC or as of
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last week, the two other unbeatens none of them played each other at each
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other. So theoretically you could have had three unbeatens. You still could have
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two. You know, Florida State schedule even with the you know, the
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end of end of season game against Florida, that's not looking real tough anymore.
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So, Yeah, they feel like a team that has a decent chance
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to get in. And you know, even if they drop one between then
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then in the national and the ACC title game, I think they might still
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get in with that out of conference whenever LSU, Yeah, I'm with you
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when whenever we talk about things like this, and it's like, well,
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if these four teams. Are these three teams going defeated and it never never
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really materializes. So it's about the a big non conference win that can allow
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you to overcome a conference loss. So yeah, Florida State, that makes
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some That makes a lot of sense. I kind of overlooked them looking through
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this, and that's something I think maybe some people have done over the course
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of the year with Florida State. You know, they have one first place
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vote in the AP but they're kind of just they got that LSU win and
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then they just mosey on down, mosey on down the road. While everybody
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else is, you know, having exciting games and people are paying attention to
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other programs. They're just going to sit there, and you know, they're
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very close to being you look at the like the ballots and the voting,
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they're very close to being number three in the nation right now. And I
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am going to correct myself. This does include the conference championship game, so
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that that feels ridiculously high for Oklahoma if you consider you know, you also
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include the Texas game there. But well, we're already we're already nine minutes
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in this exercise, so we're going to kind of plow on ahead. Now
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what's interesting, Tony, is we've got number one Oklahoma. We got number
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two Florida State, We've got number four Georgia. We know all of those.
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Now what's interesting is number three, number five, and number seven are
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all Big ten East teams. I would like you to try and guess for
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me which order the three Big ten East teams are in. I think Ohio
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State is number three? Is that correct? Time? Can you tell me
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yes? That is correct? Yes, twenty five point three percent. And
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here's the thing, because they're viewing Ohio State as winning at Penn State,
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and then it's a fifty to fifty shot to win at Michigan. So then
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I would think maybe having Michigan go to Penn State, are they taking the
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home field there for the Nitney Lions baking in a possible Ohio State win to
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Michigan. How about this time? And this feels way wrong? Is it?
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Penn State at five? It is Penn State at five, Penn State
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at fourteen point four percent Michigan and just I mean just a fraction of a
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percent below that thirteen point nine percent. But yeah, they do have to
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Michigan does have to go to Penn State. They get Ohio State at home,
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with the Buckeyes being you know, the highest of those teams right now,
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it is how that that is not probably the order I would have those
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in, but this is the exercise we're doing. So there we are the
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only team ahead of Michigan. Between Penn State and Michigan is Washington at fourteen
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point two and then North Carolina way down at seven point seven. That feels
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like a the check's about to come at some point for North Carolina, just
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a matter of when that happens. They still have, you know, they
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have several losable games coming up and then also would potentially have to play Florida
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State in the a SEC title game. So what's interesting now is you look
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at the Ohio State Penn State game and with the with the thing we talked
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about earlier, where Penn State potentially now is in the driver's seat in terms
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of the eyebreaker. This weekend's game is a monster monster game. This is
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this is when we've had circled since January that this is going to be one
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of the games that determines not only the Big Ten title, but also potentially
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the national championship as well. Or at least plays into that decision or that
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result. This just feels like this game is just kind of getting bigger and
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bigger now that you sort of know that some of the other stakes outside of
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that have changed. Yeah, and even the you know, the loser of
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this may not be out of it, but the winner is definitely in the
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driver's seat. And the winner of this can then perhaps withstand a loss,
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and because this will be one of the best wins of the season for anybody.
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So that's something that you can put in there. I did here on
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the radio. This is the first time since two thousand and six that you
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have two ap Top ten teams playing this late that are allowing under both allowing
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under ten points per game, and you have to go back to like nineteen
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seventy seven for that to be the case for two Big ten teams allowing under
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ten points a game, and then to nineteen seventy three to be allowing under
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ten points per game and scoring thirty five points per game. So just some
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interesting numbers there, But without any of those numbers, this is a huge
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game for both of these programs, knowing that Michigan is waiting in the wings
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for both of them, but that's that's way on down the road, Like
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this is the most important game of the week, and I think we said
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it after the we said it earlier last week, like it's going to be
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a rock fight. This is going to be I don't think it's going to
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be a very pretty game, but it's actually going to be. It's going
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to be a very huge game. It's not going to be necessarily pleasing to
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the eye in terms of the football prowess of these offenses. Well, you
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mentioned the precedent of the first time since nineteen seventy three. Maybe Ohive State
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can get this big ten tiebreaker decided by a vote of the athletic directors.
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That worked out just fine for Ohio State back then. It might work out
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this year. Probably not. It's interesting though, that because you mentioned that
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this could very well be a rock fight in a lot lot of the projections
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have this as a twenty four to twenty type game, twenty four to seventeen.
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If it is low scoring and it is close, that certainly would be
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good news for the losing team in terms of you know, there is no
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no one is going to feel happy about a loss a or a close loss
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in this one. But long term, you'd much rather lose a game twenty
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to seventeen than have a higher score game that you end up losing by two
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touchdowns or seventeen points or something like that, because that's one of those ones
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where the Committee points to that and goes, well, they weren't really competitive
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in this game, or they were only competitive for three quarters or something like
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that. A close, low scoring game probably helps I mean, you know,
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whatever win helps the winning team obviously, but a close, low scoring
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game might actually be beneficial to the team that loses as well. Yeah,
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for sure, And especially if that losing team is Penn State. To lose
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on the road at the number three team in a nation, that's something that
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is the Committee likes those kinds of losses, and they're certainly better than most
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of the Big Ten wins that we've seen this year with these schedules that the
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teams are playing. So that's you lose this game, it's not over for
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you, especially if Iowa wins the Big Ten championship. Throw that one out
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there, Tom, What happens to the playoffs? If Iowa wins a Big
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Ten championship, is it at that point a twelve and one Iowa team.
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I would be perfectly okay with leaving a twelve and one Big Ten champ out
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of the playoffs if it is Iowa. I mean, I would be completely
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fine with that because I don't want to watch. I mean, we've kind
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of seen what happens to Iowa on the big stage in those kind of moments,
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haven't we. Does everyone remember the Christian McCaffrey Rose Bowl That was exciting
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for about six and a half minutes. You know, it's this Iowa team
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has a very, very very good defense, but it's also when you're playing
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teams with good offenses, and they really have not played a ton of teams
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with good offenses. Penn State really the only exception. Thumped pretty good by
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Penn State. It just that doesn't feel like that's going to hold up for
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sixty minutes against a better team. But you know, we're a long way
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from a twelve and one Big Ten champion Iowa. Let's hope we remain a
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long way from a twelve and one Big Ten champion in Iowa. But we
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will figure out who Iowa, well, who likely Iowa will play in Indianapolis.
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We will have a one big piece of that puzzle coming up on Saturday,
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as the Buckeyes and Nitney Lyons square off in Columbus geck off at noon
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on Fox Big at noon kickoff, very big game. We will be there.
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Of course, we'll have coverage all week this week, starting with the
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Brian Day press conference on Tuesday. We'll have that at YouTube dot com slash
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bucke Huddle. We will have coverage coming up of the player interviews on Wednesday
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night, and plenty if all of your all of your normal features during the
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week, we'll have all that stuff heading up to that big game on Saturday,
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and then of course our usual postgame coverage as well, should be a
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should be quite an eventful day, a quite an eventful post game show,
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win or lose, So you'll want to be subscribed there at YouTube dot com
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slash buckey Huddle, and of course at buckey huddle dot com as well.
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We've got this is gonna be a very very big recruiting week as well.
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Mark Gifler will be all over that for us at the on the huddle board
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at bucke Huddle dot com. Very big recruiting weekend, very big football weekend,
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game weekend, very big national championship picture weekend all at Buckey Huddle dot
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com. That will do it for today. Thank you guys all for joining
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us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow